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E.42. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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.E42 ^ 



WJ8H; ,„ 

ADDRESS OF THOMAS D. ELIOT, 

OF THE 1st CONGEESSIONAL DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

^]^ TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 



My Friends :— I feel impelled to address you by considerations which have 
nres'^ed themselves upon me recently with an earnestness that I am not able to with- 
stand They control wholly the unwillingness I have always felt to anticipate or to 
accompany what I deem it right, as a public servant, to say or to do by statements 
explanatory or defensive. These days develope rules of action inapplicable hereto- 
fore As your representative, anxious to advance, here at this time, by personal in- 
(luence and by vote, your real interests, I am desirous also that you shall know why 
I have not advocated and why I cannot support the " Compromises of this year. 
So far as thev are unreal or unsubstantial, or may be understood as surrendering or 
conferrincr some privilege or power which we do not intend to surrender or center, 1 
object to Uiem as frauds upon those who are the other parties to the "Compromise. 
In this catef^ory must be included all propositions for concession which, it is claimed, 
do not surrender principle. The great question upon which the Southern slave- 
holders ioin issue with us is one of principle. If we yield anything that is substan- 
tial it must be something of principle. When it is said that we must, at this 
momentous crisis, be willing to concede and to surrender, provided only we remain 
faithful to principle, nothing is said, for if we yield nothing that costs us anything 
we give nothing that is of value. If it be deemed of value it is because the party 
who receives it is deceived and believes that more is conceded than we intend to 
yield. A compromise thus effected is secured by false pretences 

But some amun^ the proposed measures of adjustment which have been pressed 
with earnestness upon Northern men do manifestly involve serious surrender ot 
principle— of all, in lact, that is real and vital— of all that we have contended for, 
for the vindication of which the Republican party was organized, and in whose vin- 
dication it has achieved success. And so far as these propositions are concerned, 1 
obiect to them as frauds upon the people of the North and West, as frauds upon 
freedom, whose commission presupposes faithlessness to duty and criminal violatioa 
of hi"h trust. As there are two classes of compromise, both objectionable upon the 
sener^al grounds above stated, so there are two classes of States sought to be affected 
by them. The Southern seceding States may, it is hoped, be reclaimed, and the 
middle adhering but threatening Slates may, it is urged, be retained if these conces- 
sions, or some of them, be made. But no one of the seceding States proffers return to 
alle<riance upon concession. By no one of them is compromise desired. And lor a 
reason that is well understood. The design to withdraw from the existing Union and 
to construct a Cotton Confederacy has been indicated from time to time by Southern 
politicians for many years. It was entertained by Mr. Calhoun, and has been devel- 
oped by his disciples ; and the election of Mr. Lincoln and consequent loss of politi- 
cal power by the Sou'h are availed of as the fit pretext for its consummation. And 
no one of the able and patriotic men who have spoken for the middle States in the 
Senate or upon the floor of the House of Representatives has felt authorized to com- 
mit his State to a continuance in the Union even if the concessions are made which 
have been most hopefully advocated. " Concede and we will consider," has been 
substantially the ground assumed by them. But these men, able and earnest and 
hopeful, are not secessionists, and do not sympathize with them in their respective 
States. The secessionists in the middle States mean to bring about disunion for 
subsequent "reconstruction" probably— but disunion now, as the first step toward 
such reconstruction as will secure to them permanent power. I have seen no rea- 



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son to believe that any concession that does not involve unconditional surrender ot 
manhood would affect perceptibly the action of these States. No promise or pledge 
has been given by any State or made by any representative concerning State action 
upon " concession ;" nor have any authorized assurances been held out to the repre- 
sentatives of the free States of the Union that any middle slave State would proba- 
bly be satisfied to remain united with them upon concession made. If the seces- 
sionists within any State can control the action of their State, no offered compromise 
would prevent separation. If they have not control, no withdrawal from the Union 
will occur. 

I desire now to review briefly the "question" and the "compromises" proposed. 
The duty of the free States will be thus developed. 

The question is one of political power. From the day of the inauguration of Mr. 
.Jefferson to the day of the election of Mr. Lincoln, with brief interval, the power of 
the Government has been held by one political party. In course of time, gradually, 
and by the operation of causes growing out of the character of our institutions, this 
parly has become more and more obviously the party of the South, or, more accu- 
rately, of the slaveholding interest of the South. At last it has come to pass that 
its success has been rightfully deemed the success of the slave power, and its defeat 
has been as rightfully deemed the success of the free power in the land. Now it 
was well known that the census of this year would demonstrate certain facts which 
would materially affect tlie balance of political power in this country. Among the 
earlier compromises which it was deemed wise by the founders of our Government to 
sanction, that one which determines the apportionment of representatives among the 
several States by adding to the whole number of free persons "three-fifths of all 
other persons" was destined to secure a political power to the slave interest which 
the natural forces of freedom could alone control. Those natural forces have been 
operating hitherto, and it was known that the census statistics of 1860 would add 
more strength to freedem than the arbitrary provisions of the Constitution had guar- 
anteed to slavery. The election of Mr. Lincoln upon the Chicago platform has 
demonstrated the power of a present majority, and the necessary withdrawal from 
olBce by Southern Democratic States, consequent upon it, has forewarned the extreme 
South that such majority earnestly operating within the rule of the Constitution, in 
favor of freedom, would probably indefinitely postpone the recovery of lost power. 
And the time will come when the historian who shall narrate the occurrences of this 
year will be obliged to record the fact, that ambitious, designing, and reckless men, 
flushed with power, and insolent from its long possession, resolved to ruin when not 
permitted to rule, encouraged and aided by public officers willing at any sacrifice to 
conceal their own official corruption, have by a series of fraudulent misrepresenta- 
tious to the people of the Southern portions of the Union, where no Republican 
voice is permitted to be heard, so poisoned the heart of the people against the Gov- 
ernment that within ninety days after the election of the President, six States have 
enacted ordinances of secession. Two of these States, South Carolina and Georgia, 
were original members of the Union ; but before they became so, the first compro- 
mise, "parent of all our woes," was made. In the Constitutional Convention, 
while the question of the continuance of the slave trade was under consideration, 
and the eloquent statesmen of Maryland and Virginia were opposed by the delegates 
from South Carolina and Georgia, it was deemed best to let in these two States up- 
on their own terms and not to exclude them from the Union ; and the compromise in 
the first article of the Constitution was made that States might " import " such per- 
sons as they thought proper to admit prior to 1808. 

To extend slavery was the purpose and iheefiVct of this first compromise, and now 
it is proposed that we should for the same purpose, by constitutional amendment, 
■which shall be unchangeable hereafter, covenant and agree that lands now free 
which may be acquired by purchase, or by force or fraud, lying South of an arbitrary 
line, shall be doomed to hopeless slavery. 

The reasons assigned by secession leaders in the diflerent States to justify their 
treason are various and somewhat inconsistent. In South Carolina it has been con- 
fessed that since the timecf Mr. Calhoun, if not from an earlier period, it has been 
the purpose of that Commonwealih. at a convenient time, to assume its position 
among the powers of the earth as a sovereign nation. In one of the States the elec- 
tion of Mr. Lincoln has been assigned as the controlling ciuse; and the legislation 
of some of the Northern States unfriendly to their interests has been vouched in as 
one of the reasons impelling them to separation. But the recognized Republican 



s 

doctrine, ih" vill of the majority expressed according to the provisions of con- 

stitutional law, should control and determine the policy of the Government, has been 
repeatedly avowed as the radical and underlying grievance which cannot be sub- 
milted to. The pretence is that the m;ijority will oppress, and assunie powers not 
conferred by the Constitution. No oppressive measures have been initiated, for as 
yet the Republican party have had no control or responsibility ; and it is obvious 
that none could be consummated without a majority in the House of Representatives 
and against a majority in the Senate. But the time is near at hand when the Re- 
public°an party, if faithful to its principles, would control both the Senate and the 
House ; and the Southern politicians have well understood that now, before the 
inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, was the time to strike the blow. During the Presiden- 
tial canvass, when it was ascertained that the hostile wings of the Democratic party 
could not unite, and that a Democratic defeat must be sustained, there were in the 
Cabinet at Washington able, ambitious, and unscrupulous men, who, it is now known, 
■were then in conspiracy to overthrow the Government. The Army and tiie Trea- 
sury were in their hands. The money of the Treasury was thrown into Southern 
States, and used to strengthen Southern power. The military forces of the Govern- 
ment were dispersed and sent far away from home. The arms and munitions of war 
belonging to the Government were withdrawn from the North, and large sums of 
money expended in the procurement of other arms and munitions of war, which have 
been distributed among the forts and arsenals of tiie South. When it is remembered 
that these acts of treason were designed and consummated for the purpose of ena- 
bling the extreme Southern States more successfully to throw off their allegiance to 
the Union, and more readily to establish an independent slave Confederacy, it will 
be appreciated at once that no concession or compromise, however humiliating, could 
prevent or postpone those ordinances of secession advocated and demanded by the 
very traitors who, at Washington, had prepared the way for their vindication by- 
arms within the rebelling States. 

On the 20th of December, 1860, South Carolina assumed to withdraw from the 
Union. Mississippi followed on the 9th of January, 1861 ; on the 11th of January 
Florida and Alabama enacted their ordinances of secession. Georgia followed on 
the 18th, and on the 26th of January Louisiana determined to unite her fortunes with 
those of her sister States. Six separate sovereignties were thus created, and while 
I write, these rebel Slates are in convention for the purpose of forming what they 
term a Provisional Government. The same men who, in the Cabinet of Mr. Bu- 
chanan, had initiated, plotted, and arranged these acts of treason against the United 
States, were found in the conventions of these States, hurrying to their final passage 
with mad haste the ordinances of separation. And one of them is now the President 
of the convention of seceding States. During all this time the forts and arsenals 
and public property of the United States within these States were left unguarded. 
Months before, the President had been warned and urged and entreated to protect 
and defend them. But the men who held his ear withheld his hand. With a few 
important exceptions, every fort and arsenal, and depot of arms within the seceding 
States, has been seized, and is now occupied by the enemies of the Union. Immense 
supplies of arms, ammunition, and implements of war have been fraudulently and 
traitorously possessed under color of authority from the States in which they 
were situate. And they are now held, with large deposits of money also seized, 
against the will of the Government to wliich they belong, under a pretence of right ! 
It is proposed to retain and to use them all if necessary to defeat any attempt which 
shall be made by the Government to recover its own property ! 

It is obvious that no action of the Republican party could have stayed for one day 
the progress of events during the month of January. If the President had been 
faithful to his duty, those various acts of treason could not have been consummated. 
But the consequences of his criminal inaction cannot be visited upon us. And when 
it is remembered that among the most persistent and uncompromising leaders of the 
secession rebellion are found the men who have from its organization most bitterly 
opposed the principles and denounced the men of the Republican party, it will be 
appreciated at once that no action of that parly short of its dismemberment could 
have been effective to control the course of events which have brought the Union to 
its present distracted condition. In the record of the past, no history is found of such 
gigantic national crime, as that which will blacken the page that shall describe fitly 
events recently enacted and now occurring among us. The means adopted by the 
traitors, official and political ; the consequences risked and d^'fied, and the end to be 



secured, must be regarded together, if we would estimate aright the unparalleled atro- 
city of the great act of treason. To overthrow a popular political party; to estab- 
lish slavery as a national institution; and to recover and perpetuate political power, 
are now recognized as the threefold end sought to be brought about by preliminary 
secession and subsequent reconstruction. It is not impossible that the hurried and 
illconsidered, and insolent action of the first secedmg Slate may result in permanent 
separation of the Gulf States; and whether such result was originally contemplated 
or not, it may in the progress of events be made inevitable. It must be so, unless 
such humiliating surrender by the free States of the rights of freemen shall be made, 
as will demonstrate that we are inr'.eed a nation of slaves; or unless, in the mysteri- 
ous providence of God, events shall occur, at which the heart of the nation, is shakeo 
in advance with dread, that may call i'or reconstruction without the presence of a 
slave. . 

But the "question" is not fully stated when we have considered the causes of this 
rebellion or its progress hitherto. There are border slave States, where radical seces- 
sionists are now working with that zeal which avowed treason stimulates to unwea- 
ried anp unscrupulous eifforts, and where noble and patriotic men are striving to stem 
the mad tide that must otherwise overwhelm them, and their families, and their for- 
tunes! And the Republican party is called upon to strengthen the hands of those 
men against their common enemy. I frankly confess that it is here I feel the pres- 
sure of the call for concession. There are men in all those States who recognize as 
clearly as we can do the weakness, folly, and wickedness of what is called secession. 
Their hopes centre in the Union, and their personal fortunes are involved in its exist- 
ence. In Missouri, the most western, and in Maryland, the most northern of the 
border States, tlie great interests of the people seem to be so dependent upon their 
continued union with the the free States, that their patriotic men may truly say, " it 
is to the Union alone we must look for continued prosperity and peace." 

But there is one prominent and controlling objection to the measures of concession 
and guaranty proposed, not affecting their.character — itself objectionable — which ia 
applicable to the position assumed by the middle or border States. 

All the " compromises" are concessions merely, without equivalent. It cannot be 
said properly that the equivalent is that the border States will not attempt to with- 
draw from the Union. That, if true, would be no equivalent. It would be a demand 
for concession upon threat and not for value. But it is not true. No party or party 
man has declared or claimed a right to do so, that any of these States would not 
•withdraw if these compromsises are granted ; but only that being made, the hands 
of Union men would be strengthened in their contest with disunionists. Whether, 
thus strengthened, they can uphold the flag of the Union is uncertain. But if it shall 
appear that such strength thus st cured will be sufficient for that work, this objection 
remains: that ail or substantially all of those who have from the border slave States 
asked concession or compromise, t'^at so they could the better at home contend with 
the enemies of the Union, have stipulated, nevertheless, for one condition, as a politi- 
cal sine qua non of permanent union. And that condition is, that no force shall be 
employed by the Government to recover its own property. 

That would be "coercion !" And "if one drop of Southern blood should be spilled, 
all the Southern Slates must at once unite." 1 believe this to he the feeling of the 
larger number of those who yet ask for concession, to the end that the present Union 
may not be lurther, and at once dissolved. But obviously, unless the middle States 
are willing to belong to the Union, and to support the Government and to "enforce 
the laws," their continuance with us would be a source of weakness, and not of 
strength. For one thing is certain, we must ascertain whether we have or not a 
Government ! If we have not, one must be made, and that would be a Free Repub- 
lic. If we now have a Government, its iuws sliould be obeyed and enforced, and 
the traitors who have taken forcible possession of the Ibrts, arsenals, military depots, 
mints, and hospitals of tiie Federal Government should be brought to punishment, 
and the property recovered. This question of Government or no Government, must 
now be settled. It must be determined in the only feasible, and, indeed, possible 
way, by retaking what has been wrongfully, and in violation of law, wrested from 
our control. To do that may require lime and money, and the shedding of blood, 
rhey alone who have conmiitted the treasonable crime, are responsible for this. At 
whatever cost of lime, or money, or human life, it must be done, if this Government 
is a Fact and not a Fiction. 
With thisquesiioD another is connected, which involves the abstract right of se- 



cession. I need not argue to you the absurdity of that right as claimed. It is said 
"six States are out, why discuss the right?" Because the adhering border States are 
also threatening States! They claim that they will withdraw, if "guarantees are 
refused." Shall we give them guarantees, even if thereby kept within the Union, 
and thus impliedly recognize the right to secede? Would such settlement perma- 
nently benefit them or us ? But if these States have a right to withdraw, other 
States may also withdraw, if guarantees are refwsed to institutions or interests claim- 
ed to be essential to their prosperity. If the iron of Pennsylvania, or the zinc of 
New Jersey or Wisconsin, shall be refused protection, or the manufactures of New 
England shall be prejudiced by unfriendly legislation, any offended State has the 
same right to secede that the hittierto seceding States have had, or the threatening 
Stales now have ; therefore it must now be settled whether such right exists. If the 
middle States insist upon such right, to be exercised by each State when it may 
choose, and as it may choose, it is worse than useless to attempt concession or com- 
promise. We can have no Government entitled to respect among the nations of 
the earth, if each State being offended may withdraw. Secession is rebellion. It is 
revolutionary. If the men who set the laws at defiance iail, they are liable to the 
punishment of traitors. If they succeed, they vindicate by force the right of revo- 
lution. But it is a question of force. I do not forget that six States claim to have 
seceded, and that one more will probably soon follow them. I am not discussing 
what onght to be done by the Government with respect to them. Where one man 
commits a crime he may be punished. Where 50,000 men commit a crime, the course 
which it may be most proper to pursue, is not so obvious. But I ain considering rather 
this assumed right of secession, in viev/ofthe compromises we are called upon to make. 
j^ot manifestly, concessions are useless, unless such right as claimed is abandoned. I 
do not believe that it will be deemed right to attempt to keep by force any State 
within the Union. But its right to secede must not be admitted expressly, or by im- 
plication. Let the revenues be collected. Let the property of the Government be 
recalled, and the evils of separation will work out their own remedy. But when we 
are called upon, as we now are, to make constitutional surrenders and concessions 
and guarantees, in order that States now in, shall be induced to remain loyal to the 
Union, no doubt should be left concerning the future exercise of that right by any 
State South or North. I have seen no reason to believe that any one State which 
has discussed the question of concession or secession, would hesitate to claim the 
right at any time peaceably to secede. I cannot hearken to any proposition, while 
such right is maintained. The "right of revolution" — we all understand. The right 
of peaceable secession, as now claimed, is a very different thing. The one confesses 
a Government, and seeks to overturn it. The other is inconsistent with the existence 
of a Government. A Government must assume to maintain its laws, and to enforce 
obedience. 

But the concessions, or compromises, or constitutional guarantees demanded by 
the slaveholding power of the South from the Republicans of the Union, ought not 
to be made or given for reasons intrinsic to and suggested by the character of the 
concessions or guarantees themselves. The Committee of Thirty-three have reported 
for the aciion of Congress certain general resolutions and a proposition to admit 
New Mexico as a Siatp, and an amendment to our Constitution and an additional 
fugitive slave law. Besides these, the compromises known as the "Crittenden" 
propositions are under consideration. I can give my support to none of them, or to 
none like tliem. Eleven resolutions have been reported. Probably no one believes 
that the passage of all of them would have any effect to change a vote in any State 
upon the question of secession. One of ihera announces that "all attempts" by 
State Legislatures to obstruct or hinder the recovery and surrender of fugitives from 
service or labor are in derogation of the Constitution of the United States. An 
" attempt " to obstruct by legi>lation would presuppose legislation with intent to ob- 
struct. The Constitution provides for the delivery, on claim, of the person owing 
service who has escaped ; and legislation with intent to defeat that provision of the 
Constitution would be "in derogation" of it. But no one believes that after a month 
of labor thirty-three gentlemen have agreed to offer a resolution for the purpose of 
announcing that fact ! Who doubts that a law made for the purpose of defeatino- 
a provision of the Constitution is " in derogation " of it ? But the objection to that 
resolution is this: Every Southern man and every Northern Democrat, as I believe, 
who has discussed or referred to the "liberty bills" or the " laws preventing kidnap- 
ping," now upon the statute books of many of the Northern States, has spoken of 



6 

them as attempts to violate the constitutional provisions concerning the rendition of 
fugitives from service. And this resolution by the terms " all attempts to obstruct," 
means to affirm, and is understood to affirm, that all such liberhj laxos and latos agamst 
kidnapping are "attempts to obstruct" the surrender of fugitives " in derogatfon of 
the Constitution." Now that proposition is not true. It^is not true in fact or in 
law. My objection to the resolution is that it is either so weak that it ought not to 
be otTered or so deceptive that it ought not to pass. 

One of the resolutions calls upon the Northern States to " revise their statutes." 
It is not deemed worth while to invite the Southern States to revise or reconstruct 
their laws. Mas^sachusetts has been revising as far as she deemed it her duty to do 
so. I decline to advise her to do more. But if it were within the fair scope of my 
duty to advise my Commonwealth concerning her legislation to protect the per.^onal 
liberties of her citizens, I should say " repeal no law which assumes to protect our 
own citizens, and which no court of Massachusetts has declared to be in derogation 
of the Constitution, without providing also that the repealing act shall not go into 
operation until the fugitive slave act of 1850 shall be so amended that the citizens of 
Massachusetts may have the right to a trial by jury within their own State upon all ques- 
tions involving their right to personal freedom." 

The sons of Massachusetts have a right to such protection from their native Com- 
monwealth. Wiiat citizen of a southern State will hesitate within his own State 
to claim the same protection and assert the same right of legislation. Another 
resolution is a congressional recognition of slavery as now existing in fifteen States, 
and a declaration that no right exists outside of a slave State to interfere with slaves 
or slavery in disregard of the rights of their owners or the peace of societrj. Now, no 
one pretends that any such right to interfere exists. Every one understands that the 
Republican party disclaim such doctrine. And the real object of that resolution 
cannot be to announce a fact so baldly incontrovertible. The object of the resolu- 
tion must be to secure a congressienal recognition of the institution of slavery as 
now existing in our southern States. I will be a party to no such recognition. 
What Madison objected to have named in the Constitution, I am unwilling need- 
lessly to recognize by formal resolution. 

But I canuot criticise each resolution in detail. Two or three of them are unob- 
jectionable and appropriate. One of them is "that it is the duty of the Federal 
Government to enforce the Federal laws, protect the Federal property and preserve 
the Union of these States." I shall vote lor that resolution. But when these reso- 
lutions assert a proposition which no one denies, but contain recognitions or authorize 
inferences which will be understood by the southern slaveholder as meaning some- 
thing which the northern Republican would be unwilling to admit in terms that he 
did truly mean, I decline wholly to give them my support. 

Among the proposed measures of adjustment, is a resolution for an amendment of 
the Constitution. It is as follows: 

"Article XII. No amendment of this Constitution having for its object any inter- 

* ference within the States, with the relation between their citizens and those de- 

* scribed in section second of the first article of the Constitution, as ' all other persons,' 
'shall originate with any State that does not recognize that relation within its owa 
' limits, or shall be valid without the consent of every one of the States comprising 

* the Union." 

I cannot consent as a Representative of the people to propose to the State Legis- 
latures any such amendment to the Constitution. By the provisions of tne fifth ar- 
ticle of the Constitution, the ratification by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the 
States, or by Conventions in three-fourths of the States, are required to make valid 
any proposed amendments thereof. It is apparently not possible that any alteration 
of the Constitution which the proposed amendment would prevent could be made. 
It is not contended that such amendment is required because of any possible contin- 
gency which could eff'ect such alteration. But it is proposed as a measure of recon- 
ciliation. No southern Stale has asked for such amendment. There is no reason 
to believe that any southern State would be affected by it or satisfied with it. But 
if such amendment could have any practical effect, it must be because it would give 
constitutional sanction to slavery which it has not now, or would furnish guarantees 
to slavery additional to those now furnished. 

I am willing that all the States shall have for all their interests the protection which 
the Constitution now affords. I am aware that the progress of civilization, the vary- 



ing interests of society, and the course of events, may require change in our organic 
law. If a National Convention shall hereafter be called, upon application by the States 
pursuant to the terms of the Constitution, such amendment as now proposed, if it shall 
be deemed to furnibh additional and substantial guarantees to slavery, may be fitly 
discussed. But I am wholly averse to the uncalled for initiation by Congress of any 
amendments, at this period of Christian civilization, which shall give more strength 
or greater perpetuity to usages, customs, or laws which recognize a right in one man 
to oppress, or defraud, or enslave another. Next in the order of proposed compro- 
mises is the Act for the admission of New Mexico. When this Territory was ac- 
quired by the United Slates, it was free by means of Mexican legislation. Being 
organized into a Territory, the Territorial legislature wrongfully and by unauthor- 
ized assumption of power, enacted a slave code of peculiar, original, and unequalled 
severity. That code now operates within the Territory, and would operate wilhia 
the State we are called on to make. It is now a slave Territory. It is proposed to 
make it a slave State. It is said that slavery will not go there because slave owners 
can do better with their slaves elsewhere. So long as that is true, slavery will not 
be to any great extent introduced. How long it may be true no one can tell. But 
slaves are there now by force of Territorial law. The fact that the number is small 
cannot affect the principle. I do not believe it to be right, nor do I believe it to be 
for the welfare of the Union that another slave Slate shall be at this time admitted. 
If it shall come in as a free State, or if being admitted it shall, as is believed by 
many, repeal the slave code and abolish slavery, the South will say, and I think with 
good reason, that they have been deceived, and the precise question now disturbing 
the condition of the country when the next southern territory shall be acquired will 
again distract us. New Mexico is not fit to be a State. Her citizens have not asked 
to be admitted as a State. The slave interest of the South will be deceived if being 
admitted she establishes free institutions. The Republicans will be deceived if being 
admitted now, she adheres to the code by which the Territorial Legislature attempted 
to legalize slavery. 

The amendment of the act for the rendition of fugitives from labor, is advocated 
as being an improvement of the law of 1850. And it is, as a piece of legislation, an 
improvement upon that law. It would not be easy to change for the worse the law 
of 1850. And, until it can be repealed or more humanely amended, I prefer 
to leave it as it is. My own views upon this subject are well known to you. I 
am of the opinion held by Mr. Webster, and more recently expressed by the South 
Carolinian disunionists m their Convention, that it was not the intention of the 
framers of our Constitution to confer upon Congress the power to legislate concern' 
ing the rendition of fugitives from labor. 

Mr. Crittenden has proposed amendments to our National Constitution in six 
articles. 

The first article provides that in all territory now held or hereafter acquired by the 
United Slates south of the line of 36° 30', slavery of the African race is hereby re- 
bognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Congress, but shall be pro- 

Iected as properly by all departments of the Territorial government. 
That article would doom to slavery by law, in advance of our ownership of the 
erritory, all the regions of Mexico and Central America now free ! When the 
people of the United States shall consent to such an amendment of their organic 
law, they will become a " slave nation." That time has not yet come. 

The second article takes from Congress the power to abolish slavery in places 
under its exdusive jurisdiction within the slave Slates. 

The third article abolishes their power to act within the District of Columbia, 
while Virginia or Maryland hold slaves, without their consent, or without consent of 
the inhabitants of the District or compensation to dissenting owners. 

The next article provides that Congress shall have no power to hinder the trans- 
portation of slaves, by land or water, from one Stale to another where slavery is 
recognized. This amendment would secure a transit through the free Slates. 

There are other amendments proposed, but these are the most important. 

When the people of the free States of the Union are prepared to incorporate these 
provisions into their organic law, another "Preamble" should be made, for these 
amendments would not be to '• secure the blessings of liberty," but to inflict the curse 
of slavery upon ourselves and our posterity. 

No changes in our law could be suggested which would more truly make slavery 
a National Institution. These propositions can receive no favor, and I have slated 



8 

them now because I believe that no argument against them will be desired except 
what the statement itselt affords. 

Such are the compromises of this year ! The people have rendered their judgment 
in favor of freedom in the Territories. The political power of slavery thereupon 
sunders the Union, demanding concession and new guarantees; and being defeated 
at the polls, insolently requ-res that the principles of its own political platform shall 
become constitutional law. 

The crisis In our National affairs is one of gravest moment. I assume with awe 
the profound responsibility that rests upon those who now represent the People. I 
was not chosen by you in view of such events. But I have regarded with jealous 
watchfulness the causes that have produced them, and I recognize the duties they 
enjoin. 

I am entreated in your behalf to make "concession " to slavery — to make the 
slave power which has ruled us heretofore more potent by Congressional legislation 
and by Constitutional amendment — so that it shall rule us hereafter also. It is said 
the Union may be saved by concession. I believe the Union has been dismembered 
now, because of power gained by unwise concessions heretofore made. I believe 
that only firm adherence to the principles of our present Constitution will restore to 
us a more perfect union and establish justice and insure to us domestic tranquility. 

THOMAS D. ELIOT. 

Washinpton, February, J861. 



H. Polkinhorn. Printer, Washijigton. 



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